Humans started building rockets way before Sir Isaac Newton's discoveries. The first rockets ever built were by the Chinese. Their rockets, knows as "The fire arrows" were not reliable nor entirely successful were some exploded while launching and others flew in wrong courses. This was mainly because people used to build and launch them without entirely understanding the logic and theory behind it all. However, all that changed when Sir Isaac Newton introduced his physics principles and laws of motion where the first successful rockets to fly into space were all after Newton's discoveries since everything about the rocket was based on his three laws of motion. He introduced the gravitation theories in 1666 and years later, he presented his …show more content…
In addition, Newton's second law of motion states "Force is equal to the change in momentum per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration." signifying that the more mass an object has, the more force it needs to change its velocity. A force acting on an object is always the mass of the object times its acceleration is the equation obtained from the second law that supports the other laws of motion, specifically the third law which says "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." suggesting that when an object exerts force on another, the second object will exert a force back with the same …show more content…
Newton's first law was the basic idea behind space shuttles and rockets or even satellites not getting close to a large body in space since that body's gravity will unbalance the forces of the spacecraft and cause it to change its path or even get trapped in the body's gravitational field. However, if its necessary to pass next to a body that has a gravitational force that might pull the astronauts towards it, Newton's third law theories are used. Astronauts will have to increase their spacecraft's velocity to a certain extent by burning more propellant from the engine to be expelled outside and achieve the reaction promised in the third law of motion. Furthermore, as long as the rocket moves in space, it burns propellants. Propellant being a large proportion of the rocket's mass, it causes the balance in the second law's equation to shed when it decreases. In order to maintain that balance, the rocket's acceleration needs to increase to take over the burnt mass. Therefore, Newton's second law was behind the strategy of all rockets and spacecrafts starting off slowly and becoming faster as their propellants are